The first annual Man Asian Literary Prize has been awarded to Jiang Rong‘s Wolf Totem. The Literary Saloon, one of the premier blogs covering international literature, raises a thoughtful objection to the selection process, however: If the award was intended “to facilitate publishing and translation of Asian literature in and into English,” a novel that’s already on the spring 2008 schedule for Penguin Press and Hamish Hamilton is an awkward choice.
Wolf Totem… may well have been the most deserving title,” writes M.A. Orthofer, “but crowning this book also sends an unintentional (or is it intentional?) message, suggesting that publishers get it right anyway—after all, they bought the book even before they knew it would be prize-winning—when our experience is that, especially as far as foreign (and especially as far as really foreign) literature goes, they have little idea of what they’re doing (i.e. it’s pretty much all hit or miss, with an emphasis on missing—as in missing the many worthy titles they should be giving a chance).”